


Face in the Mirror

by twistedchick



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, adult-kid-fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:39:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim's girl meets the family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Face in the Mirror

> "A frisk cannot be made on the basis of a hunch. The officer must be able to point to a specific fact to justify the frisk. He must have reason to suspect that he is in danger of physical harm."
> 
> Handling Misdemeanor Cases, F. Lee Bailey and Henry B. Rothblatt, chapter five, p. 99.  
> 

  
When I heard the knock at the door, I practically groaned with relief.

It was all well and good that I'd been able to borrow one of the best books that existed on evidence and misdemeanor trials from Simon. I mean, one of these days Jim's likely to bust someone for something other than a felony, and I ought to be prepared, right? But that didn't mean I understood all the details the first time through. Every phrase had weight, substance, a sense of a mile of case files bolstering it up, so I couldn't just skim and expect to make sense of it.

Reading it between chapters of a text on physical anthropology that I'd been boning up on for a substitute teaching assignment didn't help, either.

Unless it was an axe murderer complete with a dripping weapon, whoever was knocking on the door on a Monday afternoon was really going to be welcome.

No axe in sight, through the peephole. Just a tall, pretty girl with short, straight dark hair. She wore a denim jacket and jeans, with the collar of a soft-looking green shirt peeking out above the denim. Small silver earrings, with chip diamonds, but no other jewelry. She had her hands in her pockets, no purse, and her hair was wet.

"Hi. Can I help you?"

She was nearly half a head taller than I was, taller than Megan, and probably the age of my undergrad students. And she looked nervous, for no reason I could see. I don't bite unless it's called for, and never on first acquaintance if I can help it. "I'm looking for Detective James J. Ellison?" she said. I couldn't place her accent offhand, somewhere between the Carolinas and Texas Southern but not Deep South.

"He's not here right now, but you've got the right place. Would you like to come in and wait?" I asked.

"I--I'd like that very much. Thanks." She came in and I closed the door behind her. "Does it always rain like this around here?"

"Pretty much. You can hang your jacket over there, if you want; Jim's at a meeting but he should be back soon." I watched her loop the jacket over a hook, and felt a puzzling sense of familiarity. "Would you like some hot tea? I was just about to make some. Or maybe a towel for your hair?"

She shivered as a few drops fell down the back of her neck. "That would be great. Thanks."

I grabbed a clean towel out of the bathroom for her, and when I handed it to her she was looking over the loft as if it were Nirvana, something out of a dream. If I'd been more suspicious I might've thought she was casing it, but her interest wasn't focused on the security features. She was taking in the wall hangings, the furniture, the whole shape and style of the place, as if she'd had an idea beforehand of what it might look like and wanted to know if she was right.

I headed toward the kitchen to put on the water, and when she turned toward me I knew the question before she said it.

"I should've introduced myself," I said, reaching for mugs and tea cannisters. "I'm Blair Sandburg. I'm Jim's partner."

"His partner?" She stopped herself, and said, "Sophie McLintock."

"Nice to meet you.. What kind of tea?"

"Hot. Wet. Not dishwater."

I took that to mean a fairly normal blend of herbs, not Dream Tea or Visionary Tisane, and put together a pot of the Seattle Tea Company's cinnamon spice. I loved that tea, and Jim even liked it in rainy weather, such as the stuff that was streaming down the windows outside right now.

"So, how do you know Jim? Or should I ask?" I couldn't help feeling curious about her. Jim's a hunk, but he doesn't get a steady parade of pretty girls following him around. If something had changed and this was going to be a new trend, I needed to keep track of it. Maybe there was a seasonal change in Sentinel pheremones that I'd missed last year? But when I saw her eyes turn away, I relented. "Sorry, none of my business."

"It's all right." She finished toweling her hair, shivered a little, and turned up the collar of her shirt to cover the back of her neck where her hair didn't reach. "I don't actually know him. It's kind of complicated." She waved the damp towel, and I pointed toward the bathroom. When she came out she asked, "How long have you been with the police, Officer Sandburg?"

Gods, her eyes looked like flowers, those little blue star-shaped ones that came out first in the spring were blooming there in her irises on a slightly darker background. It was like I could even see the petals there, against the dark pupils. With that pale, pale skin and coffee-black hair they were striking.

I tore myself away from her eyes as the teakettle whistled. "I'm not a cop. I'm a consultant to the Major Crimes Unit, and I'm Jim's partner there, but I'm finishing up a doctorate in anthropology at Rainier University."

"Oh." She nodded, accepting this and apparently filing it away under things she didn't need to know more about right now. "Have you known Detective Ellison long?"

"About three years." What was there about this woman? Something was bugging me, it had to be right under my nose and I was missing it.

Wait a minute. We'd had that burglary ring a couple of weeks ago, the one where the thieves had stolen, um, extremely personal items along with the jewelry and stereos at the houses they'd hit in the expensive neighborhoods across town on the Hill. Love letters. Private journals. Even more private items that usually weren't seen in daylight. I mean, how often do you find a diamond-studded dildo?

Not that I thought Sophie would be here to ask about that; I didn't even want to think what would happen to that one if it weren't claimed. But she might've come to Jim to ask for his help in getting some private love letters returned.

"Is there anything I can help you with, while you wait? I mean, if you're here because of a case, I might be able to do something."

I poured the tea for her, and she wrapped her hands around the mug and inhaled the spicy aroma as if it were the breath of life. She looked too thin. I know women are thin these days, Kate Moss being the patron saint of fashion and all, but Sophie looked genuinely hungry. So I put some shortbread cookies I'd baked over the weekend on a plate and slid them down to her, and she smiled and took one. The smile told me she wasn't severely stressed, but more as if she'd come through a long difficult time and was looking toward the end of the tunnel.

When she spoke again I almost jumped; I'd gotten used to watching the way she moved, the shape of her fingers around the cookie and the way she held the cup with her thumb through the loop of the handle so the hot stoneware would warm her fingers.

"It's not for a case." She finished the first cookie and reached for a second one. "These are really great. Anisette in them, right?"

"Yeah. You could tell? I only used a little."

Sophie nodded. "It tastes wonderful with the tea."

So it wasn't the burglary ring. It probably wasn't any of my business, anyway.

"Actually, I'm out here looking for a job I've got some applications out in various places and I decided to go around and see what the places are like before I accept any of them." The second cookie disappeared quickly, as did the tea, and I refilled the cup from the teapot. "I'm an electrician. Anyway, a friend said I should come and say hello to Detective Ellison while I was here, so ... "

"That's great. All of it." She had to be a daughter of one of Jim's old Army buddies, maybe someone from his prep school. It wasn't the first time a friend of an old friend had turned up at the loft. "It makes sense to go see what a city's like before you decide to live there. I kind of lived on the road for a while, and there's a lot of places I definitely wouldn't want to stay, but you'd never know it from the tourist brochures."

Damn it, I was babbling again. What was it with me and long-legged women, anyway? Did they own some kind of switch that turned my tongue on?

I glanced at the clock; Jim should be home within a few minutes and I should be starting dinner. "Would you like to hang around for dinner? Nothing too fancy, but it's probably better than wherever you're staying."

"I'd love it," she said, "if I wouldn't be intruding."

"No problem." I smiled back at her and started planning. Veggies, rice, chicken, a few minor spices, maybe a salad. Stretching a stir-fry for one more person was no trouble at all.

"I've done a little traveling, too," she said, watching me chop carrots and celery. "Went backpacking in Scotland last summer. I even camped in the Valley of Storms during the rainy season."

"You mean there's a non-rainy season in Scotland?" Wow. That was one desolate, beautiful place, a long windswept valley between the mountains with little or no shelter other than the heather. I'd frozen hiking there with Naomi when I was ten, and got warmed up again in the only b&amp;b in the tiny hamlet by the railroad station. "It's as wet as Cascade. Did you stay in the place with the really wonderful homemade scones?"

Sophie nodded. "And took the train to Skye the next day, crossed there on the ferry, went to Portree on the bus and found a backpacker lodging where I could dry out. I used two entire cans of waterproofing on that tent after that; it's really waterproof now."

Her fingers played with another cookie, but it was a flirtation rather than real desire, I could tell. Long fingers, but strong, not delicate. She didn't feel like a danger to me or Jim and she was a whole lot better to look at than F. Lee Bailey.

In the half-second between when Jim started to open the door and when he walked into the room, Sophie turned sharply, and I saw her profile clearly against the dark walls for the first time the narrow straight nose, the long elegant bone structure of her face, the shape of her jaw.

Way too familiar. No wonder my subconscious had been kicking me with Doc Martens.

I'd been looking at a larger, older version of that set of bones for three years, every day.

***

Two heartbeats inside, instead of just Sandburg. Okay. Probably one of his students, come by to borrow a book or something. I could deal. It hadn't been that bad a day, too many long-winded meetings but not a whole lot of annoyances or excitement. I'd had time to lift weights for half an hour in the station gym and take a shower before I left and now I was ready to kick back and relax.

"Chief, Simon wants us down there at ten tomorrow for the Arrison hearing," I said as I closed the door.

Okay, the second heartbeat is over there in the kitchen. Tall girl, young. She'd gotten her hair soaked in the rain and I could smell her shampoo as it dried; one of those lightly flowered ones that didn't have a heavy chemical undertone. But it was weird. I couldn't really smell her underneath that. Under the little bit of make up that the rain hadn't washed off, I couldn't distinguish her. It wasn't that she smelled like Sandburg -- nobody does, not even Naomi, who really should since she's his mother, after all -- but that her scent just didn't stand out against the general background flavor of the loft.

Then again, when it gets damp my sense of smell isn't always as strong, and we'd had three days of steady drizzle so far.

The girl -- okay, woman, old enough but not if you know what I mean -- put down the cup of cinnamon tea that I'd smelled all the way up the stairs, stepped down from the barstool and walked toward me, a little hesitantly.

"Chief?" Introductions, please? Tell me this isn't your latest crush.

"Jim, this is Sophie McLintock. She said a friend of yours asked her to look you up."

"Oh?" I put out a hand, and she took it in a firm, reasonable grip. She must have done a lot of work with her hands; the calluses on her fingers were pronounced, but not in the same places as someone who'd spent hours on a shooting range or practicing a musical instrument.

"Hi," Sophie said, a little shyly. "I'm very glad to meet you."

"Thanks. It's nice to meet you, too. So, what can I do for you?" I let her hand go, trying to figure out what I was noticing that I couldn't sort out. Even up close I couldn't distinguish her scent. Maybe I was getting a cold. I felt relieved that she wasn't one of Blair's students, but didn't know why. "McLintock, you said?"

Who did I know named McLintock? That sergeant from Fort Dix? No, that was MacLarren.

"Yes. Did you get the letter I sent you?"

I shook his head. "Did it go to the station? I'm sorry, I've been really busy the last week or so; I've been bringing the mail home but it tends to pile up. Sandburg?"

Blair was already leafing through the envelopes on the counter, until he found one with S. McLintock at the top of the return address. "Here it is, Jim."

"Do you want me to read it now?"

Sophie shook her head. "You don't have to. It was just to ask if you'd mind if I came over to see you while I was out here."

"Well, I don't mind so far," I said. "Is there something I can help you with?" I looked over at Blair for help, but he shook his head; he didn't have any better idea what was happening than I did. He raised a mug toward the teapot and I nodded, so he poured one for me.

Sophie nodded nervously, looking very young. She went to her coat and brought an envelope out of the pocket. "This is a little scary for me. I hope you ... anyway, I'd like to show you a couple of photos, if you don't mind."

"Okay." Photos. Did she have some kind of evidence that she felt embarrassed about taking to the station? It wouldn't be the first time that had happened. My memory was reeling backward through every acquaintance I'd had, all the way back to that stupid boarding school, and the only McLintock I recalled was a character in a John Wayne movie. I followed her back to the island, accepted a mug of tea from Blair and patted him on the back, and walked around to look at the small photos she was putting in order.

"Do you recognize anyone in this picture?" she asked. Her heartbeat was fast, light, faster than when I'd come in. Whatever this was about had to be important to her.

The picture was faded, and worn away on the edges, but I could see a tall, thin boy in Army fatigues with his arm around a girl, under a tree. The girl wore a pink miniskirt and sweater, and looked happy; the boy looked tired but relaxed. And very familiar.

His nametag on his uniform, so small nobody but me could see it, read "Ellison."

I reached for a stool and sat down, a little too quickly. Blair moved behind me, put a hand on my back, and it steadied me.

"I think I'd just gotten out of boot camp, then." I almost didn't recognize my own voice; it was the voice of that young boy so long ago. "I used to walk off the base to this diner that was a couple of miles away, just to see something that wasn't military for a while, and I think she was a waitress at the diner. We went out until I was transferred, about six months later."

She'd been working the night shift, and sometimes I was the only customer for an hour or so. She was about my age, just out of high school, and we'd sit and talk and later on, after I'd been there a few times and got my nerve up, we'd go out after she got off work and watch the sun come up before I had to be back on base. Well, usually before I had to be back on base.

I looked up from the faded photograph. "Her name was Linda."

"Linda McLintock."

"Yes. Linda. I didn't remember her last name. That was it." I drew a breath, and the cinnamon aroma jarred me back to the present. "Is she all right? Did something happen to her?" I felt worried that she might have been kidnapped, or killed. Why, I don't know, but it's happened enough in my life that it almost gets automatic. Blair rubbed my shoulder blades with the palms of his hands, staying close in case there was bad news so I wouldn't have to take it alone.

The girl moved her head in something that wasn't either a nod or a shake. Her hair was almost dry now, and it separated into little feathers on the back of her head. "She got married, and moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and had three children." She paused. Her heartbeat flared more. "I'm her oldest daughter -- " she took a deep breath, "and yours."

Mine?

I looked at Sophie McLintock and I saw a pale face with my own nose and my mother's eyes and hairline, my own forehead and cheekbones, and my brother's slender, strong hands.

Overload. When I closed my eyes the floor came up to meet me.

***

Oh, man. Talk about your basic gut-level shocks.

I had my hands full, keeping Jim from hitting his head on the way to the floor. Sophie, after her first shock, helped me catch him and lower him gently, and put his feet up over the rungs of the overturned stool to get them higher than his head. She ran into the bathroom to get a wet washcloth for me, and I folded it into a hand-sized oblong and patted Jim's forehead and neck with it, hoping that the slight discomfort would bring him back.

Jim's eyelashes fluttered, and his eyes opened, unfocused at first. "Chief?"

"I'm here. You feeling okay?"

"A little dizzy." His gaze turned toward Sophie. "I didn't just dream what happened, did I?"

"N-no." She looked awful, a combination of worried and scared and maybe a little regretful as well. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, please." Jim reached up a tentative hand to touch her cheek, a feather touch. "It's just going to take me a little while to get used to the idea."

Now that I was looking at her more closely, the family resemblance was even stronger. She had the same few flyaway dark hairs at the ends of her eyebrows, the ones I'd watched my mother pluck when I was very small; the way her nose ended in a precise sculptured tip, without benefit of surgery and the shape of her eyes as well as the color were hers as well. In a way it was like seeing my mother again, long before I was born, when she was a young girl before she met William Ellison at the country club's Fourth of July party. "How old are you?"

"I'll be twenty-one in a few months. December 15."

I couldn't help sighing. "Why didn't she tell me?" Her skin felt like velvet. She caught my hand in hers and held it as if it were glass.

"I think she wanted to, but just about the time she found out for sure that she was pregnant, you were transferred. And then you were transferred again, and she lost track of you." She smiled. "Mom's pretty stubborn. She would've liked you to know, but she didn't want anything from you, and she knew if she went through the official notification procedure it could get sticky."

"Does this sound familiar, Chief?" I asked, and Blair grinned at her confusion.

"Naomi. My mother," he explained. "Stubborn? I have a list of candidates, not a father."

"Oh, I know who your father was, Einstein. Wile E. Coyote." He patted my shoulder, knowing I was joking to relieve the tension. "I'm sorry, Sophie. Go on."

She flushed. "Anyway, you were gone, and you weren't coming back, and she decided to keep me and raise me her own way. And she did."

I closed my hand around hers a little, just to encourage her and make her feel less awkward. I wasn't the only one having an anxiety problem here.

"Yeah, I'd forgotten about that. They had a personnel shift, and I was moved to a base in California for about two weeks, and then to Germany." I frowned. "Chief, that towel feels really clammy."

"You think you can get up? It'd be a lot easier to serve dinner if you weren't on the floor, man." Blair helped me to my feet and steadied me for a moment until I got my bearings again. "Why don't the two of you go over and sit on the couch while I cook?" His hand in my back wasn't subtle.

"Okay, Darwin." I turned to her and said, "Would you bring the photos? I'd really like to hear about them, and you."

"Really?" She looked uncertain, as if the whole visit had been a bad idea and she'd probably better hit the road, but I touched her arm lightly and she stopped.

"Really. Please."

She scooped up the small pile of photos and went to sit near me on the couch. When she'd put them in order on the coffee table, along with some other pieces of paper, it didn't look like much to define a life. But I couldn't ignore the evidence of my senses.

She didn't smell out of place in the loft because she smelled like me.

I didn't peek at the photos, though it would've been easy. I wanted to know what they meant to her.

I hadn't even met this girl more than ten minutes ago and I was already worried about her. How to ask this? "Did she -- did you -- have enough, growing up?" Damn it, if I'd known, I would've gotten money for her somewhere. Raising a child alone wasn't easy for anyone. I could've sent her my poker winnings -- that would've been a good-sized monthly check right there. And no strings, or not many; just having someone I could visit who wanted to see me would've been heaven, back then. She wouldn't have had to see me if she didn't want to.

If I'd known.

"That wasn't a problem," Sophie said, pushing her hair out of her eyes and smiling with the memory. "Mom shared a house with three other women who worked different shifts. Not all of them worked at the diner. Tara was a waitress, but Kate worked as a secretary and Debbie was a teacher. They got together and decided that if she wanted to have me they'd make sure we were all right. So, from the start, I had four parents, all of them moms and aunts. They took care of me when she was working, and it all worked out."

She handed me a photo, this one of Linda I had no trouble identifying her playing with a toddler, and another of three women crowded around as the child took a few steps. "It was wonderful."

"How's Linda doing now?" I asked. "Is she all right?"

Her heart had gone back to a slow, normal beat when I got off the floor. Why was it speeding up now?

"She got married to a building contractor in Memphis, two more kids -- half-brothers. Andy's about ten and Tommy's eight." A sideward look at me, with a grin. "I wanted to see more of life than the Old South, so I went through trade school and decided to hit the road. I'm an electrician. Not in the union yet, but eligible as soon as I get a permanent job."

Good for her. Only twenty, and she knew what she wanted and was going out to find it.

I could hear Sophie's voice, and beyond her the sounds of Blair making stir-fry chicken in the big wok. It felt funny, as if part of my past had rolled back around like in Harry Chapin's "The Circle Game," as if I could remake history or reweave the strands of my life. One of the strands carried more regrets than I'd realized, for the people I'd left behind in one place or another, by accident and by design. It wasn't often that I wanted to change any of it, but I wished I'd had the power to see Linda again sooner and know what Sophie had been like as she grew up.

I must have thought myself into a small zone, but again inhaling brought me out of it. She was watching me curiously, sitting sideways on the couch. "You know," she said hesitantly, "I expected you would object more. I thought you'd want more proof of who I am. I did bring some."

"Did you?" My eyebrows rose. "What did you expect?"

"I figured you'd think I wanted money. I don't." Sophie's voice sounded strained, her face earnest as she leaned her elbows on her knees. She poked at the photos and papers on the coffee table. "I just wanted to meet you. I wanted to know who my mother fell in love with so much that she wouldn't look at anyone else for years." Her words slowed. "She didn't, you know, for a long time. She said she didn't need anyone else but me and the girls. And then Tara died; some kind of fast-moving cancer. And Kate lost her job and had to move."

I couldn't let her go through this pain alone. I reached out a hand toward her shoulder, watching for any sign that she wouldn't want to be touched, but it didn't come and I patted her shoulder and back gently.

"What happened?" Damn it, I should have known. Where would I have been then? In the Rangers? I'd have arranged something, somehow. There were always channels, if only anonymous ones.

"Debbie stayed with us, and she and Mom worked two jobs. Things were pretty rough for a while. And then she met Billy Mumford, and he fell for her like a ton of bricks." She gave me a reluctant grin. "I know, bad pun for a contractor. But it was true. And she fell for him. It was great to see her laughing again, having fun like a kid instead of worrying all the time. They were married pretty soon after, and we went to Memphis, then Tuscaloosa. Billy's great; he treated me as if I were his own from the start, and encouraged me to go into whatever interested me. And I did."

I had to ask the question that burned inside. "When did she tell you about me?"

Sophie gave a small shrug that combined confusion and hesitance, and I could feel the narrow edge of her collarbone under my hand. "Well, I've sort of always known that you existed, somewhere. I mean, I never thought I was found under a cabbage leaf or something. And your name's on my birth certificate." She pointed at one of the pieces of paper, and I picked it up and ran a trembling finger over the words.

Child's name: Sophia Rose McLintock

Mother's name: Linda Lee McLintock.

Father's name: Pvt. James Ellison.

"But she never told me anything about you, not for a long time. Not until this," Sophie said, her slender fingertips touching the much-folded cover of the news magazine.

I didn't need to look at it to know what it was, or what part of my life it contained. That man in the cover photo, who was still living in the middle of his own private hell eight years before, was nobody anyone would want for a husband or a father.

From across the room I felt Blair's gaze on me, sending reassurance and common sense. "She's not rejecting you, she's explaining," he whispered, too low for her to hear. "Don't jump to conclusions." I nodded, for Blair's sake, and tried to stay with what Sophie was saying.

"I came home from school early. Something was wrong with the fire alarms and they sent us home. She was sitting at the kitchen table, crying and staring at this. I was about twelve; we'd been in Memphis for more than a year and she was pregnant with Andy, and here she was crying her eyes out about someone on the cover of a national magazine." Sophie stared out the windows, toward the rain-washed mountains in the distance and the tops of buildings and the street lights coming on in the dusk. "And I went to get her a glass of water. We had a mirror by the sink, and I looked in it as I went by, and I saw myself in it. And I saw you. Your face, along with mine." Her voice was shaking. "I just knew."

I reached into a pocket and handed her a handkerchief, and she nodded and wiped her eyes.

"Thanks." Sophie clutched the handkerchief in her hand, loosened her hand and tried to smooth the wrinkles she'd just put into the cloth. "When Mom stopped crying she told me she wasn't sorry she'd married Billy, or that she'd gone ahead with her life, but she was sorry that you looked so sad, that you'd had so much happen to you. She said you were a good man, and a good friend, but you looked like you hadn't had anyone to care about you for a long time, and she wished she could have been there for you."

Oh, Linda, you were so right.

"I was a real mess then," I admitted. "I don't think I would have been a good person for her or you to be around." It was a vast understatement; I wouldn't have been a good person for a child to be around for a lot longer than that, not until the past year or two.

"Oh, it's obvious." She gestured toward the magazine cover again. "I mean, I can feel the pain coming right out of that photo. But anyway, she told me about you, and about how much she'd thought of you, and she said that if I wanted to try to find you when I was older she'd help me, but that then probably wasn't the best time for it, and I agreed to wait."

Sophie pointed at another piece of paper, a newspaper clipping. It was an article on civic awards for meritorious service, and mentioned my being honored as top detective for two years running. "I'd been following your career a little I looked you up at the library, in the newspaper files. And I saw this, and read a little more about the kind of work you do, and I thought that things might have changed for you so that we ... I ..." She turned toward him. "Is it?"

I didn't hesitate. "Yes. It's a good time. It's a great time." I took her hand in mine. "I'm very glad you decided to come over." I couldn't help smiling at her, and when her smile mirrored mine I felt like my heart would overflow with surprise and happiness.

"Food's on the table, if anyone's hungry," Blair called.

***

"How long will you be staying in Cascade?" Jim asked, over coffee and more of my shortbread cookies. During dinner Sophie had asked him about his work, what he liked about being a detective, and she'd asked me about what I did at Rainier. It was like she felt she had to fill in a lifetime of holes in the first hour. I didn't say much; I sat back and ate and refilled cups and watched Jim drop half a dozen levels of self-protection and talk with her, answer her questions as much as he could and show her who he was under the tough macho cop cover.

"A week, this time, I think. I've got a few job interviews lined up, and I want to look around the place a little." She put some milk in her coffee and stirred it. "Any ideas you've got about places to go?"

"Hey, I can swing a day off this week, take you on a tour of Rainier and some of the campus hangouts, if you're interested," I offered. It was the least I could do; better she should find out which of the clubs were good and which were dangerous from me than from Big Daddy there with his Sentinel overprotective streak a mile wide. "Show you where the good shopping is, things like that."

"I'd like that," Sophie said, but her eyes strayed toward Jim.

"Give me a moment." Jim went to the phone and pressed a speed-dial number. "Simon? Any chance I could take time off tomorrow? Right, the morning's taken. How about a half-day, tomorrow after court? Yes, it's important. Thanks, sir. I owe you one." He hung up, a huge smile on his face. "How's tomorrow afternoon for you?"

"That's good. I have an interview in the morning, but I didn't have anything planned for later." She nodded; this was good.

"How about if I show you around town a bit and we get a chance to know each other a little better?" Jim asked hopefully. "When are your other interviews?"

"I've got one, no, two on Wednesday morning, and depending on how they go I'm planning to talk to some of the smaller construction companies as well, but after that I'm available until Sunday." Sophie looked a little shy. "I don't want to upset your schedules, you know. I can always go wander around by myself."

"Well, we can't either of us take off that much time during the day," he said apologetically. "But at least you can come over in the evening, if you want to."

"Please. We'd be glad to have you here for dinner every day, if you want." I figured I should say something, since I'd probably be cooking, and Jim shot me a grateful look. I could tell he didn't want to push too hard, but I could sense the urge to be close to her felt strong, the Sentinel instincts kicking into a new level. Not just Protect the Guide but Protect the Child, if she'd let him.

***

"So. What's so important that you call me during the evening news to ask for time off?" Simon looked over his glasses at me. "Or is this some Sandburgian thing I shouldn't know about?"

I checked the clock. We had twenty minutes before we had to be in court. It was probably enough time for Simon's heart rate to peak and come back to normal, or as normal as it ever got in this adrenaline pit.

"Nothing like that, Captain." I shut the door to Simon's office. "You might say it's a family matter."

"A family matter. Hmph. Last thing I knew, you weren't talking to most of your family."

I nodded, accepting a cup of Simon's morning coffee. Today it was fresh Kona, way less acidic than that last batch of Columbian Supremo he'd had. "Different generation."

"A different generation? You're taking Stephen's kids to the zoo?"

You have to give it to Simon. He remembers everything, whether you want him to or not.

I could feel the smile threatening to break through my "just the facts" demeanor. "Not quite, Captain. I'd like to show my daughter around town."

It was worth it.

Simon's jaw dropped, and the coffee splashed out of his mug and onto his tie. Fortunately, it was already an interesting pattern of browns and golds, so it wouldn't show much. Sandburg would probably call it tortoiseshell, and identify what species of tortoise it might have represented, including the change in markings and subspecies after the coffee. I just handed him a napkin.

"Jim, in all the years I've known you, you've never said a word about this."

"I didn't know. Now I do."

"How?"

"She showed up at the door last night, with proof. Birth certificate, photos. She doesn't want anything from me, just wanted to meet me." I couldn't help smiling, thinking of her. "She's twenty, looking for a good job as an electrician, and she decided to check out Cascade, and me."

"And you're good with this?" Simon's expression went from amazed to concerned. He does that a lot with me.

"I'm fine. And yes, before you ask, I did verify everything she told me with official records. But I don't need a DNA test to know." I tapped my nose. "She's definitely mine."

"I don't think I needed to know that," he muttered. "Does Sandburg like her?"

"He invited her back to dinner for the rest of the week, and he's taking her over to the campus and around the university district on Thursday. I'd say they get along pretty well."

"Hmm." Simon refilled his coffee and sat down again, still staring at me as if I'd grown another head. "What's her name?"

"Sophie McLintock." My girl.

Simon's face went from concerned to amused, a change he usually reserves for Sandburg. "So, when do the rest of us get to meet this paragon?"

"Paragon?"

"She's your daughter. She has to be something pretty special, Dad." He turned on that smile he reserves for poker games, when he's just laid down the full house and the rest of us have less than one pair. "This could be very interesting."

I took another taste of Kona. "She's just here for a few days now. We're going to show her around a bit, get to know each other a little. We've got twenty years to catch up on."

"I hear you." He leaned back in his chair, observing me almost the way that Blair does when I'm about to do something he's not sure of. "Sounds like a plan. Don't forget to introduce her to the rest of the family, while you're at it." He waved a hand toward the busy Major Crimes bullpen. "I'm sure everyone here would love to meet her."

"Ah, Simon, I'd kind of like to do this gradually, if you don't mind. No major announcements. I mean, I didn't even know she existed until yesterday. I don't want her to feel overwhelmed."

"All right. I'll keep my mouth shut." Simon shook his head. "Damn. Another Ellison in Cascade. This is going to be interesting."

***

I picked her up at 1:30 outside the Youth Hostel downtown. She was wearing jeans again, and another soft dark shirt, this time teal, under the jacket, but they looked too newly ironed to have been worn all day.

"So, how did it go this morning?" I asked. "Where was it?"

"Cascade Power and Light," Sophie said. "A little uptight. The place looks like a suit farm. I'm not sure I'd fit in."

"Suit farm?"

"You know, everyone has to dress for work, even if they're rewiring fixtures or stringing cable. I don't like that; it's hard on the good clothes and it's stupid. Inefficient. Like how I look is going to be more important than whether I can fix a transformer that's shorting out."

"Can you?"

"What, fix a short? Yeah. I did a couple of them last spring. Complicated, but otherwise no big deal." She leaned back in the truck seat and checked out the scenery; we were driving through a well-to-do residential section. "Where are we going?"

"I thought you might like to see some of the sights that aren't on public transportation. The beach, such that it is, and the park. And the view from the hills. If that's all right." I slowed the truck a little; if she didn't like it we could always turn around. "We'll be back in time for dinner."

"Sounds great. I'd like to see more than the city. How did it go this morning? You had a trial?"

She must have remembered from when I called Simon last night. "A preliminary hearing in a racketeering case. I was there when it all went down, so they wanted to get my statement and ask a few questions." It had been a nasty case, a protection racket involving illegal Malaysian immigrants and sweatshops, and I was glad to have helped put an end to it. That didn't make it any easier for me to talk about, though. "It went well enough. The case will go to trial next month."

"How do you do it?" Her arms were crossed, not defensively, and she was starting to get goosebumps. I realized that the truck was colder than Sandburg would tolerate, and I turned on the heat. Probably she was as easily chilled as he was. "How do you deal with people doing things like that, and manage to shrug it off when you come home?"

"I don't shrug it off, any of it," I told her. "It's more like it's compartmentalized. Blair says I have this ritual I go through when I get home that helps me shut the door on the day, and if I don't do it exactly right I'm a real bear. He's probably right; he notices things like that." I thought about it a moment. "Actually, I'd bet a lot of cops have something like that."

"Makes sense. Did you do that when you were in the military too?"

"No," I admitted. "That was more 24-hour-a-day stuff. It took until I came back from Peru for me to figure out how to stand down from it at all."

"Can you tell me about Peru? Not what you did, but what the place was like?" We were outside the city now, most of the way to the beach. "I'd love to go there."

"Where I was, it was pretty rugged. Mountains, fast rivers, thick forest. Beautiful, like something out of a dream, and deadly as a nightmare. It's not a tourist spot." I turned the truck down the side road. "The cities, like Lima, are good places to visit. Blair'd be better at telling you about them; he's been there more than I have."

"You two get along well," she observed. "But you're really different."

"Amazing, isn't it?" I turned to smile at her.

"Yeah. But interesting. Were you ever married?"

I nodded. "A few years ago, to someone from the station. It didn't work out. She's in San Francisco now."

"Sorry." When I glanced over, she added, "That it didn't work out."

"Water under the bridge." I didn't like remembering that time. "It was probably too soon after Peru."

"Post-traumatic shock, or something." She looked at me sympathetically. "I don't think I would've liked you then."

"And now?" I asked hopefully. I parked the truck by the rail, where you could get the first good view of the beach and the waves curling in.

"You're interesting. There's a lot more to you than what's on the surface."

"Watch it, you're starting to sound like Blair."

Sophie grinned as she got out of the truck. "You say that like it's a bad thing?"

***

Sophie and Jim must've had a great time at the beach; they came back giggly. Two Ellisons giggling has to be seen to be believed. They went through the spaghetti I'd made as if it were air instead of two pounds of angelhair with marinara sauce and parmesan. I offered to pick her up at the hostel the next day, but she said she'd meet me at my office when I finished office hours at 11. There she was, right on time, giving all my students something to think about besides the ritual offerings made to fertility deities in Central America.

Hey, she was giving me something else to think about too, but I had to behave myself. After all, I was the prof. The authority figure, so to speak.

Then again, I can't complain. Walking around campus with someone that gorgeous who's paying attention to what I say is definitely good for the ego, not to mention the reputation.

"You want to stop by the Student Union and get something to eat, or do you want to eat over in the University District?" I asked.

"Does it have something besides burgers?"

"Lots of things. Greek, Italian, Persian, Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, French. You name it."

"Sounds great. Can we stop by Mister Photo later on back?"

"Sure. You need film? I might have some in the office to spare."

She shook her head. "No. I stopped in yesterday and asked them to make copies of the pictures I brought with me. For Jim."

Does this girl have it or doesn't she? "He's going to love that. Really. You couldn't do anything nicer for him."

"Well, I like him." Sophie looked a little defensive, as if she thought I might object. "I didn't have any idea what he'd be like, and I was scared stiff to meet him, but it's really turning out well and I wanted him to have something of me. So when I go home it won't be like he dreamed it."

There was something wrong with the way she said that, but I didn't pursue it. "That's really great. I'm so glad you like Jim. He's definitely a worthwhile guy."

"Yeah. I figured out something about him yesterday, at the beach. He's ... " Her eyes flickered away from me, toward the small crowd cluttering the entrance to the building. "What's going on over there? Is it a protest?"

Too many people looking an odd sort of disturbed, like a crowd at a car crash. "Nothing scheduled that I knew about." I speeded up, and so did she. The crowd opened to let Rafe and Brown through with a boy wearing a long open coat and a pair of handcuffs. "Hey, what's happening, man?"

"Sandburg. You got a problem with us being on your turf for a change?" Brown wisecracked. His eyes went from me to Sophie, and he straightened a little and looked as if he wished he'd said something more impressive. "Just doing a little clean-up." He herded his prisoner over to a car with a couple of uniforms, parked in the drop-off loop nearby.

Rafe paused a moment. "Hi, Blair. Your wallet should be a lot safer now." His eyes swept over Sophie, and he nodded to her and put out his hand. "Detective Brian Rafe."

Sophie smiled, the kind of slow reserved smile that you usually see on royalty. "Sophie McLintock." She was tall enough that they were nearly eye-to-eye, and looked very comfortable with it. Think Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief, or Audrey Hepburn in that first movie where she was a runaway princess.

"So, you caught the campus pickpocket. Good job. How'd it get on Major Crimes' desk?"

"It didn't. Brown was dropping me off for a meeting with my advisor and we saw him at work in the bookstore. He must have forty pockets inside that coat." He looked at Sophie again and his let go of Sophie's hand, but looked as if he'd prefer to hold onto it for a while. "Are you one of Blair's students?" he asked her.

"No, I'm thinking of going here and Professor Sandburg has been kind enough to show me around." She gave me the look that, on her father, would have told me to go along with any line she threw out.

"She's a friend of the family, from away back." It wasn't obfuscation, really.

"What are you studying, detective?" she asked. "Criminal justice?"

"Psychology." Rafe opened his mouth to say something more and the campus clock chimed. I couldn't remember ever seeing Rafe so befuddled. "Sorry, I'm late. Nice meeting you." He turned and took off toward the academic buildings at not quite a run.

Sophie and I caught ourselves looking at each other out of the corners of our eyes. She started giggling first, and I followed, and by the time we made it into the building we were both a little giddy. "Do your friends always check people out like that?" She didn't sound annoyed, just curious.

"Always. That was a great royalty act you put on." I smiled, to show I wasn't putting her down for it.

"Thanks." She grinned. "Keeps 'em guessing. Don't tell me Jim does it too."

"Not the same way. I don't think Brian's ever felt like kissing his hand for it."

She nodded slowly, a thoughtful grin on her face. "Could be interesting."

The trendy café‚ upstairs was packed, and so was the deli, but the rathskeller, with its old dark wood and comfortable chairs, wasn't that busy; the food came to the table almost before we'd ordered it. Sandwiches, small salads, coffee. "So, you think you'll move here?"

"If I get a job. The last interview didn't go that well." She looked at the table and back up at me. "It's all right. I wouldn't have wanted to work with that kind of jerk anyway."

"Which kind? The super-uptights, the macho tough guys, or the snerds?" Classifying people is part of anthropology. I like to know which clan and subgroup I'm dealing with.

"I don't know." She shook her head once, uncertainly. "Something just didn't feel right. I didn't like the way they looked at me. It wasn't one of the ones I told you about the other night; this was a last-minute one. They had an ad in the paper, so I called and went to see them right after Cascade Power and Light."

"Good enough." I made a mental note to myself, in the section of my brain labeled "Do not tell Jim unless it's police business." I didn't need to have to explain anything extra to Simon. "How did Cascade Power go?"

"Not bad. And I've got a couple more to go, with some construction companies." She gave me a knowing look over a forkful of lettuce. "I know how to deal with the guys on the job; I grew up doing that. But I have problems with some of the suits."

"I hear you," I said. "It takes different skills."

"Oh, yeah. If they would just ask me to go fix a circuit or run cable or rewire something, I'd be fine. But I hate feeling like something from the Fat Stock Show."

"You know," I said, "if you want to run through a couple of scenarios with me, we can go over ways to handle some of the questions. If you like." I didn't want her to feel I was pushing, but if she wanted the help, I was there.

"Thanks." She smiled at me, relieved, and the whole dark 'skeller seemed a little brighter.

"You were saying you'd figured out something about Jim?" I felt curious. A week ago she hadn't seen him; now she had theories, ideas.

"Yeah. I think I know why he's a detective. I mean, he's smart, he's capable, he could do almost anything, right?"

Could she have picked up on the Sentinel thing already? Was it really as genetic as that? She couldn't be another Sentinel; I'd have figured that from Jim's reaction to her. Maybe it was like hemophilia, she could be a carrier but the gene wouldn't be active unless it was reinforced? I shook off my speculation. "I'm all ears."

"Okay. The obvious thing is that he's doing this because he's good at it? And he is good, isn't he?" I nodded. "But think about what it is that he's good at. He's good at killing people. He's good at taking people out quietly, so they don't even know they're dying until they're dead. That's what Rangers do. He knows how to track someone the way the Comanches or the Shawnee did two centuries ago. He knows how to live off the land, how to survive no matter where, no matter what. And he spent years doing this, didn't he?"

I thought I could see where she was going, but she was taking a different route than I usually did, so I nodded again, encouragingly.

"So where does that fit in Cascade? Or anywhere in America? He's not the kind of survivalist that's going to hole up in Idaho with ten years of canned food and a million rounds of ammo."

Actually, I could see him doing that, fairly easily but I wasn't going to say anything. But she was right. "He's not that kind of loner any more."

"No, he's not. He has you. And he has other friends too, I think. He doesn't act like someone with no friends." She took a drink. "But it's more than just having friends. That helps a lot, don't get me wrong. It means he doesn't have to hide out as much, and when he does someone will understand. And don't tell me he doesn't hide out when something bothers him, or change the subject really fast. He did it yesterday on the beach."

God, she's fast. She should be a police observer. "What did you ask him about?"

"Peru." I dropped my fork and it clattered on the table. "Not like that, though he took it that way at first. I asked him what it looked like, because I'd like to go there sometime. And he told me to talk with you about Lima and Quito because where he was wasn't touristy." She gave me the knowing look again. "Do I look like someone who wants to go to Peru to have my picture taken in the public market? He was hiding out, and he was trying to protect me from something."

I started to say something to that, but she went on. "That's all right. I don't have to know what happened there. But it's part of what I figured out." Her voice dropped a little. "He doesn't like what he had to do, a lot of it, but it's given him the skills he has now. He's had to hurt a lot of people, and some of them didn't deserve it and he couldn't make things right. And this is the only way he can use what he knows how to do to help people, maybe make up in some way for what he did before under orders."

It made sense. Jim has a guilt streak as wide as the Pacific when something really bothers him. And I knew that a lot of his Ranger work didn't bother him any more, but there were still nights when I'd hear him upstairs, caught in a nightmare he couldn't bear to watch, and I'd go up and wake him the way he'd taught me to do, the way Rangers woke each other so they wouldn't trigger those defensive reactions. The first time I heard the nightmares I touched him on the arm and the next thing I knew I was lying flat against the wall, four feet off the ground, trying to figure out how I'd learned to fly. He never told me what happened in the nightmare, other than that a woman was screaming, but I'd heard what he was yelling in his sleep and I can understand a lot more Spanish than I let on at the time. I would've screamed, too.

"What do you think?" She leaned forward, interested in my reaction, and I realized I'd gone into a little mini-zone thinking about Jim. "Am I right?"

"I hadn't considered it that way, but you're right. How do you know all this? You're really perceptive."

"Uncles. Cousins. Some of the guys in Billy's construction company that I know. They'd talk about Vietnam and Cambodia, and I'd listen until they noticed I was there and their voices would change, and they'd talk about something more suitable." Her eyes were dark, remembering. "Just little things, over the years, that I picked up from watching them and other people. I may have been raised by women for the first decade or so, but I got my share of dealing with men after that."

"I hope you get a job here," I said. "It'd be good to have someone else around who can see through Jim so well."

"You think? Thanks." She looked really pleased, as if I'd just given her a gift. "I like it here. If I can just get through the interviews ..."

I can see a cue when it's looking at me. "Okay. What interview questions are giving you trouble?"

***

"Man, did you see that woman with Hairboy? How does he get all the luck?"

Someday I'd have to tell Brown that I could hear him in the elevator. But not today.

"Blair said she was a friend of the family." That was Rafe, sounding inordinately pleased with himself.

"Man. I'm telling you, if they're all like her I want to meet the rest of the family." Brown came through the door into Major Crimes, followed by Rafe. "So, you got to talk with her. What's she like?"

Rafe's eyes sparkled; I didn't need Sentinel sight to know that. "Her name's Sophie McLintock. She's thinking of taking some classes and Blair was showing her around the place."

"Yeah, man, but what's she like?"

"She's out of your league, H. That woman is so classy she could be royalty."

I couldn't help smiling, and leaned in closer to the computer screen to disguise it. It's not my fault that I'm so tall I can't just huddle over the desk to hide like Sandburg, not to mention his hair advantage.

Simon came out of his office. "Rafe, Brown, my office." He glanced down at me. "Glad to see you in a good mood, Ellison. I'd be in a good mood if I had the rest of those reports on my desk by 5 p.m."

"Yes, sir."

"Sandburg coming in today?"

"He may stop by later," I said, conscious of the other detectives. "He said he had something to do on campus."

Brown opened his mouth to say something, caught Simon's eye, and went into the office. As soon as Simon's door closed, I let myself smile.

Family, Simon? As if she'd get the chance not to meet them all. I'd rather have Sophie be friends with the Major Crime unit than have her deal with my father. But I might call Stephen and see how things were going with him, and talk with Sophie about whether she wanted to meet an uncle. Burdening her with a grandfather would wait, especially that one.

***

I wasn't at the station two minutes when Rafe cornered me in the break room. "Tell me about her."

"Oh, give me a break. I'm just here to pick up Jim." When he didn't back off, I sighed. It was all an act, of course. "Who?"

"The woman you were showing around Rainier. The spectacular woman you were walking with when we made the bust by the Student Union." Rafe was trying his best to do my own puppydog imitation on me. It was pathetic, but I had to give him a solid B for effort. He does charming better than threatening.

"Oh, you mean Sophie?" I shrugged. "What's to tell?"

"Anything. Everything." He went still for a moment. "Unless I'm trespassing and you're already dating her."

I could swear he wasn't breathing until I answered. "No. Not like that. Like I said, she's a friend of the family from a way back." I hoped he couldn't see my fingers crossed. I hoped Jim was in the middle of some urgent discussion with Simon about changes to the report format. "Look, if you want to know more about her, why don't you look her up and ask her?"

Long days make me perverse, even when they're spent showing a beautiful woman around Cascade with the hope that she might move there soon.

"I tried. She's not in any of the sources." He reeled off the long list of ways to find out where someone lived that didn't involve the more esoteric police sources. "Give me a break here, Blair. Please."

"Well, I don't know. She's here visiting friends, and she's kind of a private person. But hey, if I see her I'll ask her, all right?" I wasn't going to tell him that she was at the loft helping me put together lasagne for dinner.

"What's up, Rafe? Trying to get into his little black book?" It's unnerving how silently Jim can move when he wants to. He was standing inside the door, leaning a shoulder against the wall, looking quietly amused and a little tired. Before Rafe could reply, he said, "Ready to go, Chief? I can't wait until after exams, when you're back here full time and I won't have to do all the reports."

"Yeah, yeah. You only keep me around for my typing." I grinned at him. Jim pulled himself away from the wall and we headed out. I waited until we got to the truck before I said, "You heard, right?"

"You and Sophie, Student Union, shoplifter bust, Rafe and Brown. Right?"

"Yeah. Problem?" I hoped he'd say no.

"No. She's going to have to meet the rest of the family sometime."

Right. Good. At least he had a sense of humor about it. Ever since we'd run into Rafe and Brown on campus my stomach had been hatching luna moths over the possibility of Jim being a jealous, possessive father, but he seemed to be taking it well. So far.

Sophie had done wonders with the food -- I'm going to have to get her to give me the combination of spices and herbs she threw into the sauce, it smelled fantastic -- and we were just sitting down to eat when Jim's head went up three seconds before someone knocked at the door.

She'd noticed, of course. "He does this all the time?"

I nodded. "Really good hearing. You have no idea."

Her eyes widened. "And you still live with him. Do I want to know?"

I didn't answer her; Jim had opened the door and his brother Stephen came in.

"I got your message at the track, but I've been in meetings all week and didn't have time to return it. So, I thought I'd stop by and see what you wanted." Stephen looked good in his suit and tie; he's not quite as tall as Jim or as heavily built, but one look will tell you they're chips off the same block. Jim's ironwood, though, most of the time, tough, dark, polished over rugged grain, at least on the outside. Stephen is maple, with a curling grain that when polished would hold the light forever. Same features, different substance.

In for a penny, in for a pound. I leaned closer to Sophie. "Can you deal with another relative?"

She nodded. "How many more are there?"

"Not too many. This one's friendly."

Her blue gaze looked entirely too Ellison for comfort. "Gotcha."

Jim brought Stephen over to the table as if they were crossing the Atlantic in the Mayflower. "Stephen, I'd like you to meet Sophie McLintock. Sophie, my brother, Stephen Ellison."

She got up and put a hand out to him, looked him straight in the eye. "Hello. It's nice to meet you." The words were totally inadequate, of course, and had nothing to do with the way he was looking her over or the expression on her face that mixed hope and nerves and probably more that I didn't know about under as much composure as I've ever seen Jim muster.

Stephen recovered first. "I'm sorry, but you ... " His voice trailed off. He tried again. "Have we met somewhere?"

Sophie shook her head. "I don't think so." I could see a smile just starting.

"I don't mean to be rude, but you look very familiar." He realized he was still holding her hand and he dropped it gently.

It was about time for the fly on the wall to intercede. "Steve, good to see you. Pull up a chair. Would you like some lasagne?" I slapped a table setting together without trying, and Jim nudged him toward the chair. Stephen sank into it, still looking confused.

"I'd better tell him, don't you think?" Jim could hardly suppress the grin, but he waited until his brother was sitting down. "There's a good reason she looks familiar. Sophie is my daughter."

I've got to hand it to Stephen. He only did the goldfish expression for about five minutes. It was a great improvement over fainting. "Wh- whe- when?

"Just after boot camp, apparently. I didn't know until she showed up on Monday." Jim's smile was as wide as it could get without starting to unzip the top of his head.

Stephen blinked. "Does --"

"Not yet. I thought I'd spare her that, for the moment."

"Spare me what?" Sophie laid the blue gaze on Jim, calmly, waiting to hear what he thought he was protecting her from. If she'd turned up the voltage it would've raised a lot of sparks, like a welder's torch. I ducked out of the way a little. No sense in getting scorched unnecessarily.

"My father." Jim looked at the table, then back up at her. "What can I say? He's not someone I can deal with well, and he's been pretty hard on Blair. I tend to stay out of his way." He looked at Stephen helplessly. "I went into the Army to get away from him, and boot camp was easier than staying home."

"Okay." Sophie was following him on this. "So he's a dinosaur. That's all right. If I get to meet him, fine. If I don't meet him this trip, I probably will, eventually. It's not a big deal." She put a hand on Jim's arm. "Chill. It's not an emergency."

Stephen watched Jim come back to himself, start to warm up again, and he relaxed. "I think that lasagne looks wonderful." I served him a section. "Thanks, Blair. So, Sophie, what brings you to Cascade?"

***

I felt so glad that Stephen and Sophie were getting along, but I still had that weird prickle down my spine as I watched them talking. It was like seeing two figureheads by the same artist, the same profile from different directions. I shook it off. This was too much fun to be introspective about, and besides, that's Blair's thing, not mine.

Stephen invited her over to meet his wife, Lisa, and the kids, and she accepted gracefully. I knew him well enough to be sure he wouldn't pull any unexpected stunts on her, like inviting my father without telling her.

"I think you're overreacting, Jim."

What? I pulled myself back from reverie.

"I don't think meeting your father would necessarily be a disaster." She leaned an elbow on the table and reached for the plate of dinner rolls. "I mean, look, I don't owe him anything but genetics. If he's rude to me, I can be rude back and walk away and he can always blame it on my upbringing, and we can both get on with our lives. Besides," she added, buttering a roll, "from what you've said, you two grew up pretty well off, right? Well, I didn't. Just the fact that I'm in the trades instead of in a profession is probably going to throw him for a loop."

She had a point. My father had no blueprint for dealing with anyone who worked with his hands as well as his mind; that was one reason he never understood my being a cop. He could deal with attorneys, bankers, financiers and the occasional extremely successful architect, but when it came to working with the plumber fixing the leaky sink, he left that to Sally, the housekeeper.

I wasn't going to steer her toward him, but I wasn't as worried as I might have been.

***

The cell phone rang as I started in on Jim's third report the next day. "Sandburg."

"Blair! I got a job! Yahooo!"

Jim swiveled in his chair so fast his hair was moving. "Sophie?"

"You did? Terrific! Hey, Jim's here. Talk to him." I handed over the cell phone and watched Jim's eyes go dark and brilliant with happiness. Simon was standing by the door of his office, entranced with the sight of a happy Jim Ellison. I was amazed the glow coming from my partner hadn't alerted everyone in the building to the possibility of a major emotional meltdown.

"We're celebrating tonight, for sure. Six o'clock sound good to you? Great. See you then.." He handed the phone back to me, beaming.

"You're looking happy, Ellison. Does that mean you're hosting the poker game this week?" Unless that's a problem, Simon's eyes said.

Oh man. I didn't think Jim could go through that many expressions in under six seconds. The one that surfaced at the end was still happy, and a little anticipatory. "Sure, Simon. Tomorrow night."

"You hear that, people?" Simon's voice rose to alert the rest of Major Crimes. "Ellison's hosting the game Saturday. Be prepared to take him to the cleaners." His voice dropped down to a more personal level. "You want me to bring anything?"

"We'll be fine, sir," I said. I figured I'd set out taco makings and let the players serve themselves, with a pot of chili on the side. Nothing difficult for poker night.

I sure hoped Sophie knew a flush from a straight. But even if she didn't, she should distract the rest of the crowd enough that I could win a few more hands than usual. It always felt good paying Jim the rent money with the poker winnings, putting it to a good cause.

***

"It's entry level, but I expected that. Carderock and Moss have a good rep in the business; I checked them out. It's a bigger company; I'll have more chance of advancement and a good chance at more training as I go along." Sophie was talking almost as fast as Sandburg, but without using her hands as much. I appreciated that, as I would've been wearing the wine otherwise. "Next step, apartment hunting. I can use some suggestions."

"Better get them from me; Blair's last place exploded." I smiled. It was easier to smile at in retrospect.

"Hey, I was gentrifying that neighborhood, giving it a little class. Is it my fault the neighbors were too involved in their home drug business?" Sandburg protested. "Seriously, there are a lot of good sections of town; it all depends on how much you want to spend."

"For now, not too much. If I can find a furnished studio, or a furnished room to rent, that would work."

"Do you have a car?" I asked.

She shook her head. "I have an old Nova, but it's in storage. I don't think it would stand up to another winter."

"Maybe Billy can suggest someone to drive it here for you," I said. "That way, more of your things can come with it and you can start work sooner."

Did I catch a small frown at the sound of Billy's name? Her heartbeat spiked, went back down again.

"It's a thought." She raised her glass. "To the job."

I put the thought aside for later. Blair looked almost as proud as I felt as we clinked our glasses against hers.

***

I had too many classes to take time off on Friday, and I had to go in to the station in the afternoon, so Sophie did her apartment-hunting alone. Jim had finished the reports while I was teaching, and when I arrived was reviewing the available data on an extortion case Simon had handed him. We left almost immediately to follow up on a few leads Jim had found by phone.

"Sophie's going to Stephen's tonight, right?" I asked.

Jim nodded. "Strange, isn't it? I've been getting used to having her around."

"Did you ask her about the poker game on Saturday?"

"Not yet. I thought I'd be able to call her today, but that didn't happen."

As we turned down Coronado Street, the radio crackled, something about an incident in progress in the 1200 block of El Camino. Coronado and El Camino intersected five blocks away; Jim hit the gas.

It's a pretty good neighborhood, old buildings gone a bit upscale but still keeping enough of their original charm to prevent the place from looking totally yuppie. I'd rented a room at 615 Coronado the summer I was twenty, because the dorm I'd been living in was being renovated and I needed to stay around for my summer job. This was one of the areas I'd recommended to Sophie. I tried to see if she was one of the blurs on the sidewalk as we hurled down Coronado, but I couldn't tell.

When we got to 1287 El Camino, there was a small crowd of onlookers, a patrol car just pulling up and something still happening in the middle of it all. Jim slammed on the brakes and shut the engine down, and we both jumped out and headed into the knot of people on the broad sidewalk. I could hear blows landing, and I didn't like the sound of it at all.

Jim cut through the Gordian crowd with his usual Alexandrian efficiency, and stopped so suddenly I stubbed my nose on his shoulder blade. When I looked around him I could see why.

It didn't surprise me that I knew the kid who was lying on his stomach on the sidewalk. He had a petty crime record longer than my academic one, and it looked like he'd be adding to his resume this time. I didn't recognize the elderly woman who was telling Officer Tim Sanchez that the kid had taken her purse and run off, and that she was very grateful that the young person had stopped him.

It wasn't unusual for the kid to be shoplifting or purse-snatching in this neighborhood, though it was a little off his beaten path. But I didn't expect to see Sophie sitting on his back, keeping him there until the police arrived.

I patted Jim on the back, a little harder than usual, and he snapped out of his zone and ran forward to help her up. Connie Monroe, Sanchez's partner, had already pulled out the cuffs and read him his rights, and was steering him toward the patrol car. Sophie stood up, a little stiffly, and saw Jim at about the same time that Sanchez came forward to take her statement.

"Sophie! Are you all right?" Sentinel senses fully operational, I could tell, as well as Sentinel overprotectiveness. "You're hurt. Your hands -- "

"I'm fine, Jim. It's nothing." She winced a little as he turned her hands over to survey the scraped palms.

"Ma'am, could you tell me what happened here?" Sanchez nodded to Jim, who was busy getting out the antiseptic and bandages, but kept his eyes on Sophie. "Could you give me your name, please? And address?"

"Sophie McLintock. Do you want the address I'm going to be moving into in a few days or the one I came from? Ouch, Jim. Take it easy."

"Sorry."

Sanchez stuffed a smile behind a sober expression and said, "Both, please."

She gave him the addresses. "I was walking down the street here, window shopping, and I heard this lady yell that someone had taken her purse. I saw him," she lifted her chin toward the sullen kid, who was being put into the patrol car, "running, pushing people out of his way. He nearly trampled a couple of little kids, and I figured he might be the one she was yelling about, so I tripped him. Like this."

Sophie stuck out her right foot, with its comfortable, sizeable shoe. It wasn't one of the clunkiest I'd seen, but the thick sole and stacked heel brought her up almost to Jim's height.

"Witnesses said blows were exchanged?" Sanchez pursued.

"Well, sort of." Sophie wiggled her fingers as Jim finished the one hand, and sighed as he took possession of the other one and started to work on it. "He came up swinging, so I swung back with my camera," she indicated the old-style Canon on its neck strap, "and it hit him in the jaw. He swung back at me, kind of wild, and I kicked him."

"Where?"

"A little lower than I was aiming." She sounded almost apologetic. Jim snorted. I couldn't help a snicker. "I was trying to knock the wind out of him. It didn't work very well; he knocked me sideways and I sort of skidded on the sidewalk." She winced as Jim dabbed at one oozing scrape and tried delicately to dislodge a tiny pebble. "That got me mad, so I swung my legs around and knocked him over and sat on him. And then you arrived."

Sanchez scribbled a little more, and handed her the pad to sign the report. She read it quickly and scribbled her name, wincing a little.

"You sure you're all right?" Jim asked her.

Sophie turned to me. "Does he fuss this much all the time?"

"More. He usually hauls me to the hospital for a hangnail." I grinned at her. I couldn't help it. It was fun to watch Jim being Jim with someone else and know that I wasn't overreacting when he was doing the same kind of thing with me.

"God. What am I letting myself in for, moving here?" She winked at me. "I can take care of myself, Jim. Really."

"That's pretty obvious." He finished the second bandage and smiled at her. "I'm just the cleanup crew."

"Right. Are you going to color-code the bandages?" She laughed at him gently, and he laughed back.

"No need. You can tell one hand from the other, right?" Jim held onto her bandaged hand, gently warming it in his own. "Seriously, you want a cup of coffee or something for a few minutes? We can take the break, and you look cold."

"A little. I'm still getting used to the Cascade climate."

It wasn't hard to find a coffee shop in this neighborhood; I steered them toward the one that had the best espresso drinks, and helped Jim carry cups to the table Sophie held for us. "How's your camera?" I asked. "There's a good shop nearby if you need parts, or repairs."

"Thanks, but it's fine." She wiped it off with a napkin. "These old 35-mm guys are tough. It didn't get banged up as much today as when I hauled it around Scotland and France after high school."

Jim had that look in his eye, the one that said, I'm going to tell you this for your own good. It's the one he used on me every time I got between him and a suspect for the first year or two. I forestalled him. "So, what kind of martial arts do you do?"

His eyebrows went up.

"A little of this, a little of that," Sophie said, with a sip of café mocha. "I studied tae kwon do for a while, and aikido, and I learned kung fu kicks when I was a kid. Some of Billy's friends run a martial arts club and I used to tag along with him until they'd let me in."

"Are you planning to keep up on it here? I know of a few dojos; I can give you names and maybe an intro to one or two of them." I said. "Some of the teachers have been students of mine, and I took a couple of self-defense courses at one last year. It was pretty good."

"That'd be good. Thanks."

I glanced at Jim. The small head of steam he'd been building up had mostly dissipated. "Okay. I guess I don't have the right to tell you to be careful, but can I ask you to be careful?" He nudged me with an elbow. "It's enough having to haul Sandburg to Emergency too often; I don't want to have to see you there."

"I am careful," Sophie said. "And thanks." She smiled at him, slid her hand into her pocket and made a small sound. "Oh. There it is." Her hand came back out of the pocket with a small packet from Mister Photo. She slid it across the table to Jim. "For you."

He looked like a kid at Christmas; I half expected him to shake it to see if it rattled. But he unfolded the flap and brought out copies of the photos she'd shown him on Monday, with a few more that neither of us had seen before.

"I thought you'd like to have them."

"I do. I think they're great." He smiled at her, leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, and she relaxed and put an arm around his shoulders for a moment. "Thank you." When he straightened up his eyes were brighter. "Tell me about the other ones."

The photos were good ones. High school graduation, cooking something over the fire on a camping trip with her little brothers, hugging a big fluffy dog. The last one was a shot of her with one of the gargoyles, up in a tower at Notre Dame de Paris, as if it were an old friend.

"They're great." Jim tucked them into the inside pocket of his coat, over his heart. "Are you busy tomorrow night? I know you're going to Stephen's for dinner today."

"Nothing scheduled. What've you got in mind?"

"I was wondering if you'd like to meet the people I work with. We have this weekly poker game, and it's supposed to be at the loft this week." He looked eager but uncertain. "If that wouldn't be too overwhelming?"

"I think I can handle it." Sophie smiled. Something moved behind her eyes.

"You do know how to play poker, right?" I asked her.

She nodded. "I've played once or twice. It sounds like fun."

***

It was my turn to host the game and Sandburg's turn to do food, but we compromised. He got the food started before he went to pick up Sophie, and I finished cooking the beef and chicken for the tacos and setting out the rest of the fixings and the pretzels and beer.

Simon arrived first, with an extra six-pack as repayment of a bet we'd made on the last Jags game. "Where's Sandburg?"

"He went to pick up Sophie. They should be here soon." I'd gotten a frame for the Notre Dame photo, and had just finished putting it together before Blair left. "This is about two years old, I think. She gave it to me yesterday."

"Hmm-mmm. Never thought I'd see the day. Jim Ellison, the proud papa."

"You hear about that purse snatcher up on El Camino yesterday?"

Simon's eyes rolled above his glasses. "She was the helpful bystander? Another real Ellison in Cascade. I may have to ask the governor to call out the National Guard."

"Now, Simon, you know we use our mighty powers only for good." I gave him the killer grin, the one I save for bullshit sessions with suspects.

"Right. That's what I'm afraid of." Simon chuckled. "So, you going to make a general announcement or what?"

"I don't know what Sophie'd be comfortable with. Haven't had a chance to talk with her yet." I figured we'd work it out.

"Okay." He went to the door to let in Rafe and Brown.

When Blair and Sophie came in a few minutes later, looking happy and interested, I stayed in the kitchen and watched Rafe introduce her to Brown as "a friend of Sandburg's family from a way back." They all started talking, Sophie the center of attention, and Simon, next to me, snickered in my ear.

"What are your mighty senses picking up right now, or should I guess?"

"A lot more pheremones than two minutes ago, but nothing I can't handle."

"I didn't need to know that."

"Not that way, Simon. As a 'concerned parent.'"

"Oh God." Simon apparently figured he needed to invoke a higher authority than the National Guard or the governor.

"Relax, Simon. I'm just going to sit back and enjoy the show."

"Okay," he said, and went over to be introduced.

Sophie was explaining that she'd fallen on a sidewalk and hurt her hands, but they were all right, really. She'd replaced the bandages I'd put on with smaller ones; when I took a look from a distance everything seemed to be healing well. Joel arrived, followed by Megan Conner, and I steered them all over toward the food, and we settled in around the table to play cards.

The deal went clockwise, starting with the host. Joel won with three queens, then Blair took a hand after some intense betting with a straight. The next few hands nobody had much, and the play went fast. Sophie slid down in her seat, stretching her legs out under the table and concentrating on her cards. She seemed to have a good idea of the rudiments of the game; she didn't make any embarrassing mistakes. When the deal came to her, she straightened in her chair, took the cards in her left hand, the one with the smaller bandage, and did a one-handed cut.

A Vegas-style one-handed cut, done perfectly.

Sophie ignored the dropped jaws and sidelong glances around the table. She shuffled the cards two-handed, slid the deck back to Megan to cut, took it back and said, "Five-card stud, aces and eights wild. Is that all right with you?"

"Oh, yeah," came from Brown. Rafe just stared. Simon leaned on one elbow, giving her a slightly toned-down version of the gaze he reserves for unruly detectives. Joel smiled, watching the rest of us. Megan sat calmly, as if she'd expected something like this to happen. Sophie ignored them all, looked down and flexed her hands slightly.

I'd noticed the muscles in Sophie's hands when I met her. I hadn't realized that this was probably one of the ways she'd developed them. I straightened in my chair to watch her work. Her fingerwork was perfect, and legitimate. No dealing off the bottom of the deck, or dealing the second or third card down, which was more common. If she was stacking the cards, I didn't catch it, and I learned to detect card sharks long before the senses kicked in.

Sophie didn't deal like a shark. She dealt like a virtuoso, flicking the cards across the table to land exactly in front of each player. It was like Yo Yo Ma playing a cello solo with his eyes shut, every note precise and perfect and beautiful. But it didn't feel like showing off. It was a game, to see if anyone would notice, to see if she could make her own place with my friends.

It was a hell of a game. Betting went higher than before, and the casual game we'd played became electric. After each round of betting she dealt cards as if they were coming across a casino table, sliding to rest in front of each player as if there were a line printed on the table for them to meet. Simon won, with five queens, and I know she didn't stack them to him; three of them were wild.

"Where'd you learn to deal like that?" Brown asked as the cards were collected for the next dealer.

"On the job. I used to work weekends in one of the reservation casinos." She shuffled the cards, did another one-handed cut and then a reverse cut, and handed the deck on to Blair, who smiled. "It was fun. I learned a lot."

Blair tried to do the one-handed shuffle, and muffed it. He shrugged, shuffled the regular way and dealt out one of his usual crazy games with half the deck wild.

"Sophie's your old friend, she should've taught you to shuffle better," Simon said.

"Well, actually, I never said she was my old friend. I said she went back a long way with the family." Blair's expression was nonchalant, but I could see that mischief in his eyes and I sat back with my beer to wait for it. "Actually, I never said it was my family."

Five pairs of eyes focused on me. "Jim? Care to enlighten us?"

I glanced at Sophie, whose smile was a little wavery. "Guess we're busted, kid."

"All right. You want the truth?" she asked, her chin up.

"We're cops. Of course we want the truth," Joel said.

"Jim's my father."

I haven't heard a silence that deep since the jungle. Then they exploded. All of them came out of their chairs and around the table to greet her all over again, as one of us and not as some outside visitor. By the time the game was over, I hoped she knew she'd found family.

***

The game ran later than usual; no surprise, considering what happened. I was washing dishes while Sophie wiped off the table and Jim ran the vacuum cleaner, the especially quiet one I'd found him. Jim finished, and put the vacuum away. He'd been watching Sophie a little more carefully the last hour or so, since the announcement, and I wasn't sure what was up. He looked a little sad.

"What time is your flight tomorrow?" he asked. "We can take you to the airport, save you the cab fare."

Sophie dropped the cloth, picked it up again, swallowed hard. "You don't have to do that."

"Sure," I said. "It's no problem."

"No. You don't have to do that." Her head turned away, and I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. Jim knew too. He moved to stand behind her and rest his hands gently on her shoulders.

"Sophie, whatever it is, we'll take care of it. Whatever it is." His voice was soft. "Did you spend all your ticket money on the security deposit for the studio?"

She shook her head sharply. Her shoulders were shaking. She leaned backward into the warm wall of Jim, and he shot me a glance that said he needed me, so I wiped my hands and went over next to them.

"Hey, Soph, come on. You can talk to us. What's wrong?"

She wouldn't face either of us. She kept looking at the table she'd wiped, and gripping the cloth so tightly her knuckles were white. "I can't go back."

Jim's face was gathering thunderclouds, but his voice stayed steady. "You're safe here. Nobody is going to hurt you." Whatever was bothering her was hitting him hard. "Please. Tell me what's wrong. Please?"

That final 'please' must have gotten through to her. "I didn't want to say anything before. I didn't want to spoil it."

"You're not spoiling anything, Soph. Come on, let's go over to the couch," I touched her arm, and she turned toward the couches limply, as if all hope was gone. Over her head I could see Jim's eyes growing dark with concern. We sat on the couch, with Sophie in the middle.

"It's not your mother, is it?" he asked. When her head shot up and she turned to look at him, he added, "I've been thinking back over everything you said. You never talked about her in the present tense."

Sophie's face was drawn, making her look achingly young. I've seen that look on the street too much since I started riding with Jim, and it always makes my heart sore and my stomach hurt.

"She died when I was fifteen. Cancer. It was fast, not much anyone could do. She didn't suffer much." Her voice thrummed, a harp string plucked too fast. "It was all right for a while, after. I took care of the boys after school, we managed. Billy worked late, long hours. I didn't see him much."

Jim reached over and took her hand in his.

"Then, about a year later, I found out he was seeing one of the secretaries at the construction company. I'd been hearing rumors from some of the guys that worked there for a while, but you know how rumors are." She shivered. "I walked in on them at the office, and he threw me out."

"You said, the other day, that Billy treated you like one of his own," Jim said slowly.

She nodded. "He did, at the start. But when I got older, and didn't look like Mom as much, he didn't want to see me around. I could take a hint. But this time, he told me to get out, he didn't want to see her bastard around any more. And I went."

The word hit Jim like a physical blow. Oh God. Here I'd thought one of us might have had a normal childhood, and it looked as if Sophie's might combine the worst of Jim's and mine. "Where did you go?"

"I stayed at a friend's house until school ended. The Millers had a lot of children, one more wasn't a problem, and I had an after-school job so I could help pay my way," she said. "Then I went to work on the reservation at the casino."

"I didn't think it was just weekends," Jim said. "You're too good." He ran a finger over the muscles in her hand. "You don't build these unless you've worked at it." She nodded. "Where did you live after the end of the school year?"

She looked up at him. "Billy was making things uncomfortable, and I had to leave. I moved to the reservation and lived near the casino. I worked there nights and weekends, and graduated from the reservation school. I have a lot of good friends there. It was a good place for me." She looked up at me. "Linda's grandmother was Cherokee, so they took me in."

"And Billy let you go?" Jim asked.

"I told you, he treated me like I was something he owned; when I didn't do what he wanted he threw me away."

Jim put his arm around her and pulled her close. "Why didn't you get in touch with me then?"

"I didn't know what you were like," she whispered. "All I had to go on was the magazine. I knew I wanted to, but I was afraid you wouldn't want me either." She gulped. "So I put myself through electricians' trade school, with the help of some of the older guys from the construction crew who didn't like what Billy was doing. They taught me things, helped me out when I needed it, got me through the exams and got me a couple of jobs so that I'd have some experience under my belt."

I shook my head. How can anyone throw a child away like that? At least she'd had a partial safety net, those friends on the crew, and the people at the reservation. No wonder she looked so hungry. "You didn't fly here, did you?"

"No. I got a ride with a long-haul trucker. Joey's a brother of one of the guys on the crew. It was all right. I slept in the truck at night and he got a room in a hotel. It worked out."

I don't like to think how much more dangerous it is for women on the road than it is for men. Naomi and I got into some nasty situations years ago; I realized later that some of them worked out only because I was there.

"Is there another reason you can't go back?" Jim's voice was still soft, but his eyes were growing lighter, icier. The coldness was aimed off over her head, in a general easterly direction toward Tuscaloosa.

Sophie nodded. "I didn't have any money," she whispered. "I had to pay back the people who'd helped me. I owed them so much, I had to do something. I helped Sara, who owned the place where I'd been living, to buy a new fridge when theirs broke down, and I had to pay back other people who'd loaned me money and were in bad straits. But I still had a key to the construction company office, and I went there. I figured he owed me something; I mean, he hadn't supported me for years, though he'd told Mom he would. And just as I was leaving, Billy found me."

If she could have gotten paler, she would have. I didn't want her to have to say things that would hurt her more, but I had to ask. I glanced at Jim; he was listening so hard, concentrating on her words and her heartbeat and her emotions that I didn't think he could do this. "Did he hurt you?"

"He tried, but he didn't get anywhere." A small, victorious smile crossed her lips. "Those self-defense lessons paid off. I put him on the floor. I took the money from the cash box, and told him I was leaving, and he said if I ever came back on his side of the Mississippi he'd have me arrested and jailed for theft, vagrancy and assault."

Vagrancy, when he'd thrown her out.

"So you came here," Jim said. I knew he was storing all this up, filing it away carefully in the back of the filing cabinet he keeps in his mind for cases. Billy was in big trouble.

Sophie nodded. "After I saw that you'd gotten the Officer of the Year award. You looked better in the photos. I don't know how to explain it. You didn't look so lonely. I wasn't afraid that I'd be getting into something worse than what I'd been through."

"You did right," I told her. "Sophie, we're your friends. We care about you. I can promise you, we won't throw you away."

"Damn straight," Jim said. He put both arms around her and cuddled her with her head on his shoulder, and she let go with a sob and the tears came. "It's all right, Sophie. You're not alone any more."

"Why didn't you say anything before?" I asked her, when she'd gotten past the worst of the tears.

"I wanted to see if you could like me for myself, and not as a charity case," she said in a small voice.

To hell with Jim's temper. To hell with twenty-nine years of nonviolence. I wanted to kill Billy myself. Slowly. Nobody should have to feel like that.

"You don't have to worry about that any more," Jim said. "Just tell me what you want me to do." He looked past her at me, his mouth rueful. "Construction sites are good places to hide bodies."

I knew he was joking, but not much. She wasn't sure until she peeked up at him and saw his smile, small as it was.

"No, everyone there knows where the bodies are hidden. You'd just upset the filing system." She started to smile a little.

"When does your new job start?"

"A week from Monday, supposedly, but if I wanted to start earlier they'd go with it.. I'd thought I could hitch back with Joey when he comes through tomorrow, pick up a few things I left there, and come back with him again. The timing would be tight but I could do it." She was shivering a little. "But I don't want to see Billy."

The wheels in Jim's mind that run calculations for him clicked into place. His eyes went ice blue with tiny pupils, then opened back up to normal.

"You won't have to."

***

"Take care of Sophie while I'm gone," I said. Sandburg nodded. "I'll sit down every night and do that meditation you showed me, and I'll phone you if I have any problems with the senses."

"Good. You do that." Sandburg's eyes were thoughtful. "Don't get into anything that I'll have to bail you out of, Jim."

"I'll be careful." I gave him a fast pat on the shoulder and went off to catch the plane.

***

I think the meditations helped him. I'd worked them out after the last time we were separated for a few days, so he'd have another way to deal with emergencies. And he'd promised me he wouldn't get into official trouble for anything; that counts for something with Jim. Then again, there are lots of kinds of unofficial trouble he can get into and out of. Maybe I should add a chapter on that for the dissertation.

Jim had insisted that Sophie stay at the loft while he was gone, and she acquiesced. He didn't want her to be alone and worried. I told her there was nothing to worry about, though privately I felt a little nervous. Actually, I think part of it was that he didn't want me to be alone and worried. But we did all right. One night we went to a coffeehouse on campus, and another night Brian, Henri, Megan and I took her dancing; okay, we didn't all get onto the floor at once, but it worked out, and she had a good time and so did we.

When Simon heard about Sophie's situation, he gave Jim the time off, no questions asked, and the name of a police captain in Tuscaloosa that he knew, just in case. He also got word out, quietly, to everyone in Major Crimes that Jim Ellison's daughter might need a little help furnishing her new studio apartment. By the Saturday before Jim came back, Sophie had all the furniture she needed and lots of strong men to help carry it up to the second floor of 38 Summit Avenue, not to mention spare cookware. She also had permanent invitations to dinner with Joel's family, a date to go shopping with Megan, and Brian Rafe and Henri Brown lining up to drive her wherever she wanted to go. It might've made me feel left out if she hadn't been staying at the loft while Jim was gone.

If it sounds like I'm leaving out Simon, I'm not. He and Darryl showed up first thing to help her carry Joel's spare dining-room table and chairs to the second floor. (This is the one Joel had in storage from before he was married; it's maple and really solid, but small, and he didn't want to just sell it or give it away. But giving it away to Jim Ellison's daughter was different.) Darryl and Sophie took one look at each other, cracked three jokes, and went into big sister-little brother mode almost immediately. Simon beamed. He sprang for pizza for everyone helping with the move, and we all slouched around on the furniture at the end of the day, eating, drinking and generally having a great time.

***

"How's it going?" I asked. I was a little late picking Sophie up after work; one of my perpetually tardy students showed up just as I was leaving the office and persuaded me to listen for ten minutes. I'll give almost anyone ten minutes; this kid definitely needed the help, and I granted him his final extension on a paper that should have been done a month earlier. I managed to have him tell me how grateful he was on the way to my car, which saved a little time, making me only five minutes late.

"Good. I like it." She slid her toolbox in behind the passenger seat and got in the car. "It helps that I'm not the only woman in the company. They have a woman who's in the Painters' Union, and another who operates heavy machinery, so there's nowhere near the kind of problems I've seen elsewhere."

"That's good." I pulled the Volvo back into traffic. "Jim phoned."

"And?" Her voice was eager but nervous.

"Billy's still in one piece, but I bet that piece is shaking like a leaf. Jim got everything you wanted from the house, and he gave your brothers the toys you sent them."

"Good." She collapsed against the seat, relieved. "How are they?"

"You can see for yourself; he arranged it so they can come visit you."

"Really? How'd he ever get Billy to agree to that?"

"I wouldn't ask, if I were you." I smiled. "Jim can be very persuasive. And large. Don't forget large."

Sophie chuckled. "Billy's not much on being persuaded, but he can be impressed. Large is good." She noticed when I turned down Sunset, away from the loft. "What's up?"

"We're picking up Darryl for dinner, and Simon will come by for him later on."

"Cool. I like Darryl. What are we doing for dinner?"

"Haven't decided yet. Some kind of casserole, or maybe stir-fry. If you have any ideas and you want to cook, go for it."

"I'll think about it." We pulled up by the school, and Darryl loped over from the group of his friends and climbed into the back.

"Hey, Sophie. How's Lightning Woman doing today?"

"Lightning Woman?" I asked. "What is this, some new super hero?"

"No, man, it's Sophie. I mean, she plays with electricity all the time, tells it where to go and how to do things. That's like lightning, right? So, Lightning Woman."

"I'm doing fine, Darryl." Sophie turned around in the seat so she could talk with him. "I've got an idea for something to do after dinner, if you don't have a lot of homework."

"Nothing I can't do later on, or in study hall," Darryl said.

"You two want to learn some card tricks?"

"All right!" Darryl high-fived the car's roof. "Dad told me about that one-handed cut of yours. Think I can learn it?"

"I don't see why not. Your fingers are long enough to get around the deck."

I sighed. "Darryl, you'd better keep it under wraps for a while. I don't want Simon to haul me in for corrupting a minor."

"It's cool, man. I won't show off in front of him. But we play euchre at lunch sometimes, or pinochle, and fancy shuffling would look very good there."

***

"Simon, I'm going to be staying a day or two longer than expected, if you can spare me."

"No problem on this end; the case load is small right now. Everything going well with the ex-stepfather?"

"Now, Simon. I was polite, soft-spoken, and quiet. I didn't do anything that I could be charged for."

"If I know you, the guy's quaking in his boots right now."

"Actually, I think he'll need new ones, as well as new slacks. Thanks for the intro to Captain Mercer. It helped a lot."

"No problem. So, why the extension?"

"I want to check out a few things, visit the people Sophie stayed with, make sure there aren't any loose ends that'll come back to bite her later on."

"Sounds good. By the way, your daughter and my son have decided they're brother and sister, and big sister has been teaching little brother how to do card tricks." Simon chuckled. "Darryl's not bad at it, either, but when it doesn't work there's cards in the chandelier."

"Keeping track of them should keep Sandburg out of trouble."

"Actually, Jim, Blair's decided he's big brother to both of them. I don't think 'out of trouble' is the right phrase at all. Don't worry, I've got an eye on them." Simon's growl came out. "But that does not mean I'm going to play Sandburg's daddy."

***

Jim didn't say much on the phone about his meeting with Billy; from what he didn't say, I wished I'd been there. Jim Ellison at his ice-cold, polite, intimidating best is something to see. From what he did say, I gathered that he'd started by threatening to bring charges for child neglect and abandonment and went on from there. When he left the house, he took away with him everything that Sophie had wanted, especially the things belonging to her mother that had been shoved into a closet and forgotten.

***

Billy was a blowhard and a bully. I made it clear to him that if he ever bothered Sophie, or got in her way, I'd talk to a few city inspectors about permits. I couldn't really make the child neglect case stand now, four years later, though it was a good place to start negotiations. But I know a few people who might be willing, individually, to take a closer look at bidding procedures than Billy wanted; not to mention the others from the past who owe me favors that I'm not ever going to tell Simon about, though I'm sure he suspects they exist. I don't think she'll ever have to worry about him again. I also got him to agree that her little brothers could come to visit her whenever they wants to, so she doesn't lose touch with them. The kids missed her, I could tell.

I didn't just go east to threaten Billy. Sophie gave me the names of the people who'd helped her, the family she'd stayed with when Billy threw her out, the friends at the Casino and after who'd stuck with her when she had nowhere else to turn. I went to visit all of them, to thank them. It was something I felt I had to do, just as I'd visited the families of the men who'd died in Peru after I came back. I wanted them to know I cared about what they'd done.

And I found out more about my daughter.

When she'd been staying with the Millers, at sixteen, working after school to help pay her way, they'd invested all her checks in a savings account without telling her. They're going to send her the money now; I've given them her address. They'd kept in touch with her when she moved to the casino, just to make sure she was all right; they hadn't just let her go.

I stopped by the homes of the construction workers, and once they'd gotten over how much Sophie looked like me, every one of them told me Sophie stories. They told me how she'd climb high steel without thinking about it, if something interested her or to rescue a cat that couldn't figure out how to get down again; how she'd listened to them talk about the war and her listening had helped them deal with it a little; how she'd tried so hard to make her mother's last days happy and to hold the family together later. It was a good thing for Billy's sake that I hadn't talked to them first; I might've forgotten about that promise to Sandburg.

The biggest surprise came when I drove out to the casino.

It wasn't hard to find the address Sophie had given me, one of a set of small homes less than a mile from the big gaudy casino. As I drove up and parked, a small woman was sweeping the front walk with an old-style corn broom. She stopped and looked me over, and her eyes grew wide.

"You're Sophie's father, aren't you? Is she all right? I'm so glad to meet you." She blinked. "I'm sorry. I'm Sara Lightfeather, Sophie's cousin."

"Jim Ellison. And Sophie's fine; she found a job and she's doing well." I couldn't help the question that came next. "Do I really look that much like her?"

"There's no mistaking it." She tipped her head to the side. "Let me guess. You went to deal with her stepfather, and you won. Right?" When I nodded, she smiled widely. "Cause enough for celebration. Come on in, meet the rest of the family."

Sara brought me into the house, got me a glass of iced tea, excused herself and got on the phone. "George, call everyone and tell them to come over. Sophie's father is here -- no, her real father, not that bearshit from Tuscaloosa. Sure, bring them along." In half an hour, it was like someone had declared a new holiday. I met more of Sara's clan, Sophie's mother's people, and it felt good to know Sophie had fallen in with people who cared about her so much. It took a while to sort out, but apparently Linda had been raised by her grandmother, now deceased, and her aunt, Sara's mother; because Linda's father was an Irishman from off the reservation she decided to go out and try to find her own place in the outside world. When Sophie showed up at the door, angry and scared and very tired, Sara took her in and made sure she knew she had a place to be if she wanted it.

Sara's brothers, George and Jack, who run the casino, are about the size of Simon. The first thing both of them did was ask me how Sophie was doing, and if she was happy. The next question was when she was coming back to visit. I think she won't have to worry about having family, or a place to go, ever.

It turned out that Sophie'd left her old car to a younger cousin who was using it to go to the local community college. He offered to give it back, but I declined on her behalf. The kid needed that transportation. The only buses around the casino are the charters, bringing in tourists. Besides, she was right; the engine on the old Nova was in great shape but that body wouldn't have made it through a northern winter. I think I'll look into finding her a good used car when I get back, something that will stand up to the weather.

It's funny. I spent years not wanting relatives, because of the way I grew up. Now I feel as if I've gotten an entire extended family of people who welcomed me for Sophie's sake, then made me feel at home. She could've stayed with them all her life and they would have been glad to have her there, but they cared enough about her to encourage her to take the chance on another life. They invited me to come back any time I wanted, and have a free night at the casino; I said no, it wouldn't be fair. After all, I can read the cards from the back most times without thinking of it; I dial the sight down to normal for the Major Crime poker games, but I wasn't sure I could do that here with the lights and sounds. Another time, perhaps.

***

Jim and I sat down in Sophie's studio and watched her tear into the boxes Jim had brought back. Some of the things she set aside to go through later on, but not all.

"Jim, this is so wonderful -- " her voice broke off and her face went still. "You found it." She reached into the packing box and brought out a faded cardboard cigar box. "Where was it?"

"On the floor in the back of the closet, under everything else. Something about it told me it was yours." Jim's eyes never left Sophie.

"Oh, it is." She sat back on her heels on the floor and opened the box in her lap. "There's something in here from every place I went, growing up, and from each of the aunts." Her fingers trailed through the keepsakes, and something glinted red under them. "And this. I was hoping it was still there. I guess Billy never did root through this box."

"What is it?" Jim put down his glass of lemonade. "Hidden treasure?"

"You might say that." Sophie pulled something out, clutched tight in her hand, and set the box down on the floor, She came to her feet and walked the few steps to Jim, and when she reached him she took his hand and put her closed fist on top of it. "It's yours."

She opened her hand, and a ring with a red stone fell onto his palm. The bezel around the stone read, "Cascade High School."

Jim stared at it, turned it on his hand and looked at it as if he was looking through it. I know I'll never be able to tell exactly what he sees when he turns on his Sentinel senses, but I could tell it was something private, something he hadn't thought he'd find again.

"She kept it?" He was almost whispering.

Sophie nodded. "And she gave it to me when she died. I thought you'd like it back."

"No." He put it back into her hand. "It hasn't been mine for a long time. I want you to have it."

He stood and wrapped his arms around her. "I've got you now. I don't need the ring."

***

Sophie had us over for dinner last night as a housewarming for her new apartment. This was the small housewarming; the larger one would be on the weekend, after her first full week at work, when she planned to host all the Major Crimes people who'd helped her.

I saw her out on the job today, bright yellow hardhat on her dark hair, listening to the foreman at the construction site on Twelfth and Phillips and nodding. She's happy in the job, and paid well. When the foreman moved on to talk to someone else, she saw me on the street and waved, and I waved back from the truck and called, "Come over for lasagne tonight?" She nodded, waved again, and went back to work, her toolbox at her side.

That's my girl.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published in a zine by Blackfly Press.


End file.
